“WORLD’S LARGEST CHOIR” TOURING EXHIBITION

Dátum a čas:
Friday - 13. 12. 2013 - 15:00 - 17:00

Miesto konania:
Výmenník Brigádnická

ART PERFORMANCE

The art performance event, “The World’s Largest Choir”, was a project of creating a large-scale painting in the ambience of the Nationwide Latvian Song and Dance Celebration. The Rector of the Art Academy of Latvia, Prof. Aleksejs Naumovs and Prorector Prof. Kristaps Zariņš wielded their brushes shoulder to shoulder with ten AAL students – Jānis Dukāts, Kristiana Brekte, Dace Gaile, Sandra Muižniece, Ieva Pētersone, Laura Vecmane, Ansis Butnors, Neonilla Medvedeva, Sanda Undzēna and Ansis Brasliņš.

The 22-metre long large-scale painting consists of 12 connected 1.45 x 1.85m individual pictures, featuring their authors’ vision and feel of the Latvian Song and Dance Celebration. As the concept was devised, the project participants were set a number of complex tasks – to convey unity, while expressing individuality, to build a consonant image, while preserving the personal touch. The project time was short enough for each participant to strongly put to the test their ability to think and work fast, accurately and intensively. Of most interest was the stage in the performance when the artists interacted in painting to combine the images they had created into a single composition.

The performance has been captured in a 15-minute film and photographs, the author of which is an AAL student Lizete Murovska.

“WORLD’S LARGEST CHOIR” TOURING EXHIBITION

“The World’s Largest Choir” was rooted in a conviction that Latvia and art are two notions inseparable. Culture and art allow us to shape the process of communication. Our song and dance are often easier to perceive and more expressive than words, thus establishing a more direct and longer-lasting link.

Since its creation during a painting performance in 2008, the large-scale picture has toured a number of places in Latvia and across the world, bringing joy to viewers in UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, Tokyo University of the Arts in Japan, the Baltic Sea Festival in Sweden, and in Turkmenistan.

Not only as a tribute to the XXV Nationwide Latvian Song and Dance Celebration, but also as a contribution to the events held by Riga, the European Capital of Culture for 2014, the Art Academy of Latvia in association with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Foundation Rīga 2014 launch a new round of exhibitions of the “The World’s Largest Choir”: the display will be welcomed by Latvia’s diplomatic and consular missions and exhibition halls all over the world till the end of 2015, because painting as a manner of nonverbal communication enables us to convey an emotionally rich and intense message on the significant role of the Nationwide Latvian Song and Dance Celebration in Latvian culture.

RECTOR OF THE ART ACADEMY OF LATVIA

ALEKSEJS NAUMOVS:

The cooperation project, “The World’s Largest Choir”, by the Art Academy of Latvia and the Latvian National Commission for UNESCO was a huge creative challenge for us, given the project’s purpose: to merge into a single piece of art the distinctive manner and individual style of twelve artists, jointly creating a large-scale painting. Undeniably, that was a remarkable process, as its goal was to limn song, sound, people and the unique tradition of our country – the Song and Dance celebration.

During the painting performance we pooled the ideas and artistic potential of ten students and two teachers to shape a single picture. Working each of us individually on our own canvas and all together for a common goal, we transformed sound into an image. It was a wonderful creative effort which successfully resulted in a work of art.

Mention should also be made of the short film by Lizete Murovska who, whilst the picture was coming to life, captured the most interesting and unforgettable moments of the process.  The project gave rise not only to an artwork but also to vivid emotions and feelings, bearing in mind that the song and dance tradition matters so much to each Latvian. Thank you everybody who were and are together with us to create the painting!

LATVIAN NATIONAL COMMISSION FOR UNESCO

DAGNIJA BALTIŅA:

The idea of paying tribute to, and capturing in contemporary art forms the tradition of the Latvian Song and Dance Celebration was born way back when we were preparing the application on the Baltic Song and Dance Celebrations tradition for the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. After the international recognition of the Song and Dance Celebrations tradition in 2003, the World’s Largest Choir initiative was the next step, while believing that culture and art are inseparable and supplement each other, enrich and saturate the message in terms of emotions.

In the summer of 2008, the twelve paintings of the World’s Largest Choir created during the XXIV Nationwide Latvian Song, and the XIV Dance Celebration, offer a possibility of viewing ourselves as a country of a unique immaterial heritage, cultivating and inheriting tradition, the source of initiative and joy. The artists’ joint effort confirms that in the 21st century, intangible cultural heritage is an inseparable part of our life and identity.

Let each painting and every single brushstroke remain a testimony to cooperation between the Latvian National Commission for UNESCO and Latvian artists, and their commitment to intangible heritage as a source of renewed inspiration for the diversity of creative expression.

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